Arick. Matriarchal Strength. 2023. Painting on canvas. 24 by 18 inches.
A face, frontal, held in a black contour that never closes neatly. The line is confident and fast. It does not correct itself. Around it the ground stays pale, and the color arrives in strokes rather than fields, red at the mouth and the cheek, yellow moving up the left side, small blue and orange marks scattered where the brush kept going after the form was already there.
The face is not a likeness. It is a presence. The eyes are set slightly differently from one another, which is what keeps it alive rather than decorative.
The title does the rest of the work. Strength here is not posture. It is the refusal to smooth anything over.
This is the largest and the most expensive work in the September selection. It is an original, one of a kind, and the full sale price is paid to the artist. A print is available separately for fifty dollars.
It sits in the Emotional Brush series, which Arick began after he stopped painting photorealistically. That story is worth its own piece.